To try and start a campaign to stop the uk release of 'A Serbian film'

[spidersandglue]

I'm not suggesting anyone read the synopsis as that's disgusting enough. But I don't know how the government can allow this disgusting film to be released!

Surely this sort of film encourages paedophillia and violent rape.

There are more slaves alive now than there has been before at any time in the history of the world. The majority of this is sex trafficking.

I'm revolted that a film like this can be given even a censored release date (10th)

If you leave the reader thinking that it is normal to rape women, then yes I would say you are endorsing rape and on very dodgy ground morally.

This film was sold to the public as a horror shock porn film...

*LadyBlaBlah" "We do not encourage babies to smoke, we do encourage people to shit in the street........it's just civilisation, nothing to do with free speech."

Thank GOD somebody wrote this. IT's funny how the whingers about censorship turn up when it comes to porn and violence, but not about editing out women's political voices and speeches from a recent conference I went to. A COngalesan woman's speech was erased from the live USstream because of the political implications. No cries from the liberals upholding Freedom of speech were anywhere to be found.

The more I live, the more I think this is less about freedomg of speech and censorship, and more about getting off on violence and rape.

Litchick,
when it comes to art, I do feel it's the artless who resort to gratuitous rape and violence of women, babies and children.

Dostoyevski: he managed to get us to empathize and identify with a murderer, and yet he was one of the first novellists I know of to give a human face to prostitution, the devastation that poverty wrecks on women. And he didn'T glorify murder because the protagonist got his comeupance. Now that is true art, something that contributed to humanity.

Repeated scences of rape and violence are artless; created for voyeurs

"the protagonist got his comeupance"

The protagonist gets his comeuppance in this film.

"Dostoyevski: he managed to get us to empathize and identify with a murderer, and yet he was one of the first novellists I know of to give a human face to prostitution, the devastation that poverty wrecks on women"

Well, he's not the first novelist to hash out the 'noble prostitute' platitude, but yes, at the time it still wasn?t as banal and hackneyed as it seems to us now. Interestingly it was Nabokov who objected to this theme (he thought Dostoevsky was a mediocre writer), arguing that the cliché rendered tragic womanhood as a cipher, inhuman almost.

Having read Dostoevsky in Russian I have to concur. Turgid, clichéd stuff. But it was what got me as a young girl into Russian literature: All those bold themes and suffering -- achingly adolescent.

The main character was not actually the main protagonist...

he was drugged so he was not techinically responsible for his crimes he was in a heighten state of sexual aggression(sp).. so all he actually experienced was such deep despair and hopelessness that killed himself and his family... seems like everyone got his comeupance ...

the real protagonist got away with it (the producer/director) and actually got to continue his depravity

The 'real protagonist' as you call it is the government Mumcentreplus.

Yes pofakked...so everyone else who took part was against their will or beyond their control...apparently

I've just read the synopsis and also feel rather sick.

I definitely will never watch it and wish that I had never googled the damn thing - or the Derbyshire (local) rape stuff either...

well I think that is the point about government manipulation and free will - how much is individiual responsibility and how much is manipulation - I don't know if it is a clear cut thing - certainly not excusing individual culpability though - I think that is why the film ends as it does.

otchayaniye
When I read Dostoyevski in Russian, what struck me the most was how perfectly he was able to describe St Petes (where I was living at the time). I disagree with you about his portrayal of Soniya.

BUt it does not surprise me that Nabokov is against Dostoyevski's depiction of women-as-real-live-actual-humans when you think that Lolita was nothing but a cardboard cut-out of a female

Oh, and it does not surprise me that someone who has come on to defend rape-porn as a genre is pro-Nabokov and thinks Dostoyevski is achingly adolescent.

A Quiz.

Out of these two people, who is "achingly adolescent"? :

Person A: Thinks rape porn and violence is edginess itself, at the cutting edge of art, and defends it

Person B: Sees violence, poverty, rape, murder and prostitution for what they are: exploitation- the powerful over the vulnerable- and is man enough to condemn it while those around him snigger

Sakura.

I never said rape porn was edgy and the cutting edge of art. I don't want to watch the film (I have been raped -- and you'll know where, the Krasnaya Strelya train from St Petersburg to Moscow and yes, find extreme scenes of sexual violence particularly harrowing) and besides, it sounds hamfisted and poorly executed.

I responded to this thread initially because one friend had had to watch it for his job. I since talked to a colleague who's friend watched it for his job as a film distributor. By those two accounts (which is more than anyone on here can summon up) it is a nasty, squalid little film and yes, designed to shock.

I am simply defending the filmmaker's right to make a film which has passed the censor and which hasn't breached the law.

I brought in Nabokov, the Bible and other examples to debate what sorts of scenes of sexual violence against women and children is acceptable.,

You're now straying into the realms of personal attack so I'm not going to engage further.

(I do agree with you about Dostoevsky and his depiction of the city -- arguably his best character. I went on some of those tours they give. Did you?)

Strela, sorry.

thank you for explaining that otchayaniye.
I apologize sincerely for straying into the realms of personal attack.
This is a sensitive topic, we've already had a guy on the previous page (ASerbianMan) logging on to MN say that this thread has tempted him to watch the film, as opposed to admitting that he has a personal desire to watch women raped and when I saw your Russian username, I though, "Oh no, not another one".

Again, I apologize.

wrt freedom of speech, I have become very disillusioned about the entire concept. It seems that the speech defenders crawl out of the woodwork when it comes to defending porn, and violence in the media, but are nowhere to be seen when political voices and speeches are censored (like the Congalesan woman I mentioned)

I was at uni in St Pete's for a year as part of my undergrad course> best year of my life

I don't mean that because your username was Russian you'd be more likely to defend the film [although the proliferation of porn in Russia is notable]; I meant that I thought you might have a personal reason to defend the film ( connected to your work, for example), but you don't, and you're not even a man!

And I don't mean you were crawling out of the woodwork! I meant yOu do get a lot of people defending their right to watch violent porn in the name of freedom of speech, but who don't give a damn about political censorship. Those are the people I'm talking about.

No problem Sakura. Of course I know that this is such an emotive subject that it's very difficult not to keep a cool head.

I am interested in what subjects are seen as beyond the pale -- scenes of torture and violence and killing and cannibalism are viewed as fair game in entertainment, but sexual violence against women and children is not. I emotively feel it is something apart, but can't quite articulate why.

I was in St Petersburg for a year in 1992-3 (erm, quite hairy times) and wasn't at university but worked as a travel courier mainly between St Pete and Moscow and Kiev. You can imagine the trouble you can get into. So no, not the best year of my life. It took ten years to summon up the desire to return (too my husband there) and I went recently to scope out a possible job for when my child is about 3 and ready for nursery.

I do have a soft spot for Dostoevsky! I just think he has major shortcomings, and well, I think most people would agree it's not the most stylish writing style ever. Of course, with my mumsnet name I am a Nabokov fan.

I think that you have to remember that it's men making and directing these films, and men getting off on them

Women don't make films like "A Serbian War" . Women, like Catherine Mackinnon, are too up to their eyeballs in real life, trying to prevent the atrocities committed against their sex.

So, it's the casualness with which men make these films, of male violence against women, that upsets women like me. Since reading up on porn, I am against that too and am no longer afraid of the sneering I get when I say that I'm anti-porn (prude, right-wing wacko, anti-liberal)

There is a strong connection between porn and rape, so a society where porn is rife rape is going to be sky high. I think Russia easily falls into that category. The amount of times I was flashed when I was there, chased by a man with an erect penis off the tube, talked to students who had been raped. It was incredible. RUssia is a country where rape is part of life, and undoubtedly porn is to blame.

I actually disagree and although I agree that Russia is a country where rape is a part of life, I disagree that it's all the fault of porn as it goes back farther in time than the widespread dissemination of porn.

But I take your point about the casualness.

yes, true, Russia has more problems than porn. BUt men who rape are more likely to have watched porn, for example.

what I mean is, there is an evidence-based correlation between rape and porn. LOts of rapists reenact a porn scene they've watched

Sakura: Bullshit, there is no evidence-based correlation between rape and porn, none of the studies so loved by the pro-censorship lobby stand up to proper examination, there was plenty of rape (much more rape and much less help or justice for rape victims) before mass media came along and finally lots of people who enjoy porn do not rape other people.

Sakura
My ONLY desire to see this film comes from you people clucking about how it should be banned, NOTHING more, this reaction would become MUCH more common should the film be banned and papers report how "Vile" it is.

Also, it seems your problem is less with the film and more with men in general.